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Vulavulani and Action Transport - A Partnership

Action Transport are working with Vulavulani Theatre Company, Soweto, on the development of “Gogo”, a new play for children. The two companies have been working in partnership since 2002 with the aim of creating joint productions which play to audiences in both countries, and internationally.

Two of the Action Transport team, Joe Sumsion, Artistic Director, and Kevin Dyer, Associate Writer, flew to South Africa in March 2005 to work alongside Vulavulani members on the story-making process. These are some of Joe’s reflections on the trip:

20th March 2005
Johannesburg, South Africa

It’s zoo day. We are four days into the development week on “Gogo” and we have already discovered two characters - a rottveiler and a grumpy cow - that we need in our play. Which of Johannesburg’s other animals will next make a pitch for inclusion?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

“Gogo” will explore traditional cultures and contemporary life in the new South Africa and will eventually be presented in summer 2006. This development week is about researching, story-making and putting the flesh on the bone of the initial idea.

The highlight so far has been a long session with three Soweto gogo’s (grandmothers) from the Zulu, Sotho and Venda traditions.

We gained valuable ideas and stories for our play – we now know that the gogo in our story will feel isolated from her community yet have love to give in abundance. We know too that our gogo will connect our audience into a forgotten past. These women gave us the kind of information which you can only really get direct `from the horses mouth’.

We also began to see the universal nature of our subject. As these three women in traditional dress spoke, I saw my own step-father reflected in them. A butcher’s son from North Yorkshire, my step-father only ever left England to fight in the Second World War, and he would have had little time for the kind of cultural interaction which we are interested in. But reflected in these women I saw his thoughts on family, his love for children, his longing for the past.

This is my fourth visit to South Africa to work with Vulavulani, and the first in which we have been able to focus solely on play-making. Our partnership began in 2002 when Fikekahle R. Dlalisa, or Ntinti as we know him, was working as an actor with Action Transport. He told us of his dream of forming his own company to revive traditional culture through theatre, to perform to the children of Soweto.

It became clear that the kind of plays which Ntinti believed valuable for his audience could be equally valuable for children in Cheshire, offering an insight into the wider world. We also realized that Ntinti was a pioneer, willing to give up his teaching job and his family’s security to create a new kind of theatre for the New South Africa. We jumped at the opportunity to work with him.

We knew we wanted to make plays together and we knew that between us we had the talent and energy to achieve this. The biggest obstacle for Ntinti to overcome was the difficulties of setting up a new theatre company in a country where there is comparatively little infrastructure and support for the arts. As we planned our first co-production, a tour of “Dumisani’s Drum” to schools in Soweto and Cheshire, we spent the majority of our time working on the nuts and bolts of creating a theatre company – becoming formally constituted, administrative and communication systems, budgeting, Board development, tour booking, project planning.

The progress of the partnership over the following two years has been phenomenal. The shows we have made have been the highlights – watching “Dumisani’s Drum” play to children in both countries, watching “Tselane’s Song” (our second co-production) blow away theatre audiences at festivals. We have developed friendships, won awards, challenged ourselves and grown as individuals. Together we have made work which individually we never thought possible.

Back to the zoo. When we go today it will not simply be me and Ntinti working together. In the taxi will also be Kevin Dyer, Action Transport’s Associate Writer, and Vulavulani company members Sizwe Vilakaze (actor), Nokuthula Ledweba (actor), Nomthandazo Cheele (Administrator), Hlamalani Hlongwane (an observer from SOMOHO, a Soweto community arts organization) and Alistair Dube (a freelance actor and director). All of these people believe in the work of Vulavulani and want to be involved. The wind is in the sails of this not-quite-so-new company.

As for “Gogo”, we are beginning to find the story of two children from Soweto who are sent by their uncle to the country – here are the bare bones of a beginning:

 
Opening...

The sun is setting on the village as the children arrive. They ask the audience where they can find Mamkhize. They approach a house with a wall around it. A fierce dog barks.

Mamkhize, an old woman, comes out and frightens the two `strangers’ away. She has never seen these children before. She goes back into the house.

The dog barks more and more as the kids steal fruit from the woman’s garden.

The children sleep in a tree some way from the house. But it is scary – they hear the sounds of the bush and think there are fierce animals all around them.

Mamkhize sings a song about her own children, who left her a long time ago

To read more from Joe’s Diary, please click here.